Australian policeman dismissed amid Nauru detention centre chaos

ELEANOR HALL: A spokeswoman for the government of Nauru has confirmed that the Australian Federal Police officer who was in charge of Nauru's police force was suspended, just as the Australian Government's asylum seeker processing centre on the island was being burnt to the ground.

The Federal Immigration Department estimates that Friday night's protests caused $60 million worth of damage and more than 100 asylum seekers have now been charged.

The Department is still calling the incident a 'disturbance'; Nauruan authorities are calling it a 'riot'.

The Director of the Nauruan government's information office, Joanna Olsson, told Simon Lauder that representatives from Nauru and Australian governments are now meeting to decide how to proceed.

JOANNA OLSSON: There is a lot of cleaning up going on onsite at the moment.

SIMON LAUDER: How many asylum seekers are there to house and how much of the processing centre is still in working order?

JOANNA OLSSON: I was up there just this morning; all the buildings are destroyed, expect the recreation centre, the new kitchen - most of that was destroyed, all the food reserved has been destroyed as well.

SIMON LAUDER: The hundreds of asylum seekers that are there, how are they being looked after and do you have all the facilities and provisions required to look after them now that as you say, all the food and buildings have been destroyed?

JOANNA OLSSON: Rest assured, they're still being fed. But they are all housed in tents at the moment. It is hoped to have them moved by the end of the week to the second camp, which was supposed to be built for family accommodation. They're still going to be in tents I presume at the second camp until they do the rebuilding of the federal accommodation for them.

SIMON LAUDER: I understand about 125 people have been arrested over the disturbance. Are they in jail and have they been charged?

JOANNA OLSSON: About 150 I'm told are in jail, approximately probably about 400 that were at the camp.

SIMON LAUDER: What's known about how it unfolded, and what happened?

JOANNA OLSSON: Well what I'm told from the police was they were on standby from 2pm on Friday afternoon, they were expecting something to happen in a couple of hours. But actually the riot started about, roughly about 6:30pm on Friday afternoon, ended around 11pm.

They were sort of protesting. I'm told they wanted answers about their asylum claims. So that all erupted into violence and fires in the end.

The police were there until about 5am.

SIMON LAUDER: I've seen reports that Nauruís acting president had to recruit some extra people into the force during the protest.

JOANNA OLSSON: Yeah there was, it was a bit of a hypnosis that it was calling on the, Nauru police force reserve was established throughout the evening. There was a couple of hundred, I'm told, local men went up there to assist.

But the police did a great job, they were at the front line; they managed to hold the rioters inside the camp. They were, behind them was the Wilson security, which is the Australian company; they were behind them with the local security company and then there was the rest of the locals who were behind that line.

SIMON LAUDER: It's also been reported that Nauru's police commissioner, Richard Britain, who was on secondment from the Australian Federal Police was dismissed during the protest. Is that true?

JOANNA OLSSON: Yes, he has been suspended. A local has been appointed to be the director of police, Richard was the commissioner of police and for the full details of the reasons behind, I'm not quite sure of it.

SIMON LAUDER: Do you know broadly what the reason for his suspension was?

JOANNA OLSSON: I think there might have been misunderstanding, or something to that degree between Proct (phonetic)perhaps himself and the government. But Iím not sure to what, to what extent or the real reasons were behind that.

SIMON LAUDER: So perhaps a difference of opinion on how to deal with it.

JOANNA OLSSON: Perhaps. I'm assuming that might be the case.

SIMON LAUDER: How are the locals responding, has there been a backlash against asylum seekers and the processing centre?

JOANNA OLSSON: Maybe not so much the processing centre but really maybe just a backlash or just bickering about the asylum seekers themselves, and of course they caused all this. Mind you there was no escapees so they never got out into the community, which was a good thing, so there are undoubtedly angry Nauruans, but in terms of having the camp here, I think people are still ok with it.

SIMON LAUDER: Is the Nauruan government making any demands for increased security, or anything like that to prevent a repeat of this?

JOANNA OLSSON: I'm told about 60 security guards were flown in over the weekend, some non-essential staff have been returned back to Australia, only because they've got no office to work from, so they've replaced them with security staff.

I'm assuming they will probably stay back on island for a bit longer, because maybe they need added security presence at the camps.

SIMON LAUDER: Do you know if there are any ongoing tensions there, are you keeping a watch on the situation?

JOANNA OLSSON: Yeah, well just speaking to the officials up there now and then, I'm sure there's still a bit of animosity amongst the asylum seekers, but they're relatively sort of calm I guess this morning.

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